Memory

A country without a memory is a country of madmen.

~ George Santayana ~

Graphic courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Poetry Friday

I think there’s been a great denial of the kinds of poets and poetries that could speak to a lot more people. Poetry has been kind of hoarded inside the schools, inside the universities. The activity of writing about poems and poetry--the activity of making it available and accessible--became the property of scholars and academics and became dependent on a certain kind of academic training, education, class background.

~ Adrienne Rich ~

If Rick Santorum Has His Way...

Women’s studies and feminism have always been attacked. I think it was in 1970 that I remember seeing an article in Harper’s called "Requiem for the Women’s Movement," when the women’s movement was just beginning to show its face. Its death is being constantly announced. But it’s an unquenchable and unkillable movement that has come and gone or come and submerged throughout the world in many different places in many different times. At this point, I think we live in an era of such global communications that that cannot happen again.

~ Adrienne Rich ~

Bullying

You know, you don't have to be the loser kid in high school to be bullied. Bullying and being picked on comes in so many different forms.

~ Lady Gaga ~

Good Advice for Writers

I tell writers to keep reading, reading, reading. Read widely and deeply. And I tell them not to give up even after getting rejection letters. And only write what you love.

~ Anita Diamant ~

Say What?

If you had to point to one thing that made it less likely that the Red Sox would win the World Series, I would say it was those people that go to Fenway Park to watch the games. And then the media around it.

~ Michael Lewis ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

~ J. G. Francis from A Book of Cheerful Cats and Other Animated Animals ~

Health Disaster in the Making

We have deferred to food companies the responsibility for ensuring that a good nutritional balance emerges. Voluntary guidelines and piecemeal nutrition initiatives have failed to create a system with the right signals, and the odds remain stacked against the achievement of a healthy, balanced diet.

~ Olivier de Schutter ~

Poetry Friday

It doesn't seem right to weigh poems like cabbage or fish, but that is precisely what the final grueling work of an anthologist becomes. And worse: Each poetrymonger applies his own rate, so the crucial question of "Who matters?" is skewed by fees that range from modest to outrageous and don't necessarily correlate to literary significance and artistic influence.

~ Rita Dove from "Introduction" to The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry ~

Probably the Reason Most Little Girls Want to Take Ballet

I wanted so badly to study ballet, but it was really all about wearing the tutu.

~ Elle Macpherson ~



Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library

Priceless Gift

Everyone should consider his body as a priceless gift from one whom he loves above all, a marvelous work of art, of indescribable beauty, and mystery beyond human conception, and so delicate that a word, a breath, a look, nay, a thought may injure it.

~ Nikola Tesla ~

A Drawing

A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.

~ Paul Klee ~

Klee drawing courtesy Museum of Fine Arts.

I Agree Whole-Heartedly

I think that being perceptive and having interests is nothing but an asset.

~ Ashley Judd ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

There is a crock of gold in the tomb of every chieftain, but they are all guarded by cats and fairies.

~ Irish proverb ~

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Even when they have nothing, the Irish emit a kind of happiness, a joy.

~ Fiona Shaw ~

Poetry Friday

No moment is too brief, no object or happening too insignificant, for a poet to notice it.

~ Charles Sullivan ~

Graphic courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Who Knew?

34.7 million

Number of U.S. residents who claimed Irish ancestry in 2010. This number was more than seven times the population of Ireland itself (4.58 million).

~ U. S. Census Bureau ~

Just Make Sure You Get On the Right Road

What keeps you going isn't some fine destination, but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive.

~ Barbara Kingsolver ~

Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

So True!

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

~ Tennessee Williams ~



Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Anatomy (A Two-fer)

Anatomy is destiny.

~ Sigmund Freud ~

So, if anatomy is destiny then testosterone is doom.

~ Al Goldstein ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Fine words don't feed cats.

~ Italian proverb ~

It's Time We Started Linking

I can promise you that women working together--linked, informed and educated--can bring peace and prosperity to this forsaken planet.

~ Isabel Allende ~

Image courtesy Open Clip Art Library.

Poetry Friday

No one expects a man to make a chair without first learning how, but there is a popular impression that the poet is born, not made, and that his verses burst from his overflowing heart of themselves. As a matter of fact, the poet must learn his trade in the same manner, and with the same painstaking care, as the cabinet-maker. His heart may overflow with high thoughts and sparkling fancies, but if he cannot convey them to his reader by means of the written word he has no claim to be considered a poet.

~ Amy Lowell ~

Especially True for Americans

We adore chaos because we love to produce order.

~ M. C. Escher ~

Science

Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.

~ Adam Smith ~






Engraving courtesy Library of Congress.

It All Depends on the View

We think too small, like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.

~ Mao Zedong ~

Maybe Not Blind Faith...

Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.

~ Michelangelo ~


Photo by profzucker.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The pup was let out, and he ran all about
So happy was he to be free.
Then Punky said: "Meow!" the dog said: "Bow-wow!"
And Punky said: "Look out for me!"

~ from Punky Dunk and the Spotted Pup by Anonymous ~

Existence

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men.

~ Alice Walker ~

Poetry Friday

You decide, says the poet.
You do some of this work,
but think carefully.

~ Lawrence Raab from "The Questions Poems Ask" ~

Creativity

Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found.

~ James Russell Lowell ~

R.I.P. Jan Berenstain

"...we have each other," said Mama, bringing the cubs close. "That's another blessing."

~ Stan and Jan Berenstain ~

Yes, Pretty!

To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty! There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them.

~ Pierre-Auguste Renoir ~

"Pinning the Hat," color lithograph, courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Echoes

I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.

~ Richard Wright ~

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The cat seldom interferes with other people's rights. His intelligence keeps him from doing many of the fool things that complicate life.

~ Carl Van Vechten ~






Photo by Carl Van Vechten courtesy Library of Congress.

Stupidity

I learned something from this healthcare debate--stupidity is a pre-existing condition.

~ Bill Maher ~

Poetry Friday

There is no single face in nature, because every eye that looks upon it, sees it from its own angle. So every man's spice-box seasons his own food.

~ Zora Neale Hurston ~

It's All Good!

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

~ John Ruskin ~

Photo published in The Boy With the U.S. Weather Men (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1917).

Is It Art?

And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, till the Devil whispered behind the leaves "It's pretty, but is it Art?"

~ Rudyard Kipling ~


Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

The Story of Ona Judge in a Nutshell

She took a passage in a vessel to Portsmouth, N.H. and there married a man by the name of Staines, and had three children, who, with her husband, are all dead. After she was married, and had one child, while her husband was gone to sea, Gen. Washington sent on a man by the name of Bassett [Burwell Bassett, Jr., Washington's nephew], to prevail on her to go back. He saw her, and used all the persuasion he could, but she utterly refused to go with him.

~ Rev. Benjamin Chase. Letter to the editor,
The Liberator, January 1, 1847. ~

Good Advice, George!

Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.

~ George Washington ~


Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

She shall sit by my side,
And I'll give her some food;
And she'll love me because
I am gentle and good.

Jane Taylor from "I Like Little Pussy"

The American Idea

The real democratic American idea is, not that every man shall be on a level with every other man, but that every man shall have liberty to be what God made him, without hindrance.

~ Henry Ward Beecher ~

Poetry Friday

In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love, and the ability to ask questions.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Flowers

Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.

~ Theodore Roethke ~






Photo © Diane Mayr.

Reading--Always in Style!

As far as I can tell, reading will never go out of style, and neither will good old-fashioned storytelling.

~ LeVar Burton ~

Happy Valentine's Day!

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

~ Victor Hugo ~

Brain Power--Yes!

Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.

~ Barbara Jordan ~


Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

The body of the White Cat grew large, and was transformed into that of a girl; how, one could not say; one only knew it was so. Her figure was majestic, her manners charming, her whole appearance beautiful beyond words.

~ From My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales by Edric Vredenburg ~

And Dance

I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; garlands from window to window; golden chains from star to star, and I dance.

~ Arthur Rimbaud ~

Poetry Friday

We have to raise the consciousness; the only way poets can change the world is to raise the consciousness of the general populace.

~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti ~

Amateur's Heart

Once the amateur's naive approach and humble willingness to learn fades away, the creative spirit of good photography dies with it. Every professional should remain always in his heart an amateur.

~ Alfred Eisenstaedt ~

Happy Birthday, My Dear Mr. Dickens

Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human nature.

~ Charles Dickens ~

Sorry, Charlie, it's a day late!

Isabella Stewart Gardner

I felt last night as though I were in a Hans Anderson Fairy Tale, ready to go on a flying carpet at any moment.

~ Isabella Stewart Gardner ~

1904 photo of the "Venetian Palace" courtesy Library of Congress.

Black History Month

Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.

~ George Washington Carver ~



Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Dogs are dogs, but cats are people.

~ Chinese proverb ~

Change

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy ~

Poetry Friday

There's always room,
They say,
At the top.

~ Langston Hughes from "To Be Somebody" ~

Actually, We Get Politics

Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy gets the Catholic Church. America gets Hollywood.

~ Erica Jong ~

What Books Have You Reread?

Lists of books we reread and books we can't finish tell more about us than about the relative worth of the books themselves.

~ Russell Banks ~

Creative Reuse

Ancient cultures from Egypt to India regularly "recycle" their buildings, sculptures, and objects out of convenience and necessity. Whenever resources become scarce, creative reuse becomes second nature.

~ Garth Johnson from 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse ~

Magic!

I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians.

~ Francis Ford Coppola ~

Image courtesy Open Clipart Library.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

                                  Joy and Love will both be yours,
                                      Minnow, don't be glum.
                                 Happy days are coming soon--
                                     Sleep, and let them come...

~ Elizabeth Bishop from "Lullaby for a Cat" ~

Simple, But True

There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call "the breaks." In order for a writer to succeed, I suggest three things--read and write--and wait.

~ Countee Cullen ~




Photo by Carl Van Vechten, courtesy Library of Congress.

Poetry Friday

Laughter is the language of the soul.

~ Pablo Neruda ~

Perfect Tranquility

That perfect tranquility of life, which is nowhere to be found but in retreat, a faithful friend and a good library.

~ Aphra Behn ~

Seven Stranded Castways

The mate was a mighty sailing man,
The skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day
For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.

~ from the theme song to Gilligan's Island ~

An Interesting Thought...

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.

~ W. H. Auden ~

R.I.P. Etta James

Sunday's Kat Kwote

To the cats I am mother and lover,
lap and toy, cook and cleaner

      ~ Marge Piercy from "Tracks" ~





Photo by Gerg1967.

Walk the Tightrope

A sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to our steps as we walk the tightrope of life.

~ Arabic proverb ~




Image by Rakka.

Poetry Friday

Freedom lies in being bold.

~ Robert Frost ~

One More Reason For Walking

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~

Libraries

Libraries keep the records on behalf of all humanity, the unique and the absurd, the wise and the fragments of stupidity.

~ Vartan Gregorian ~

Change Is Coming

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

~ Alan Watts ~

Martin Luther King Day!

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

~ Martin Luther King, Jr. ~

Photo by Carol M. Highsmith courtesy Library of Congress.

Sunday's Kat Kwote

Ignorant people think it's the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's the sickening grammar they use.

~ Mark Twain ~

Photo by Mink.